Photo credit: Courtesy of David Rotan
“Old Soldiers…….it’s a traditional buddy road trip comedy in that the main characters are on a goal, a mission, a true journey; literally and figuratively to reach a goal.” film-maker David Rotan told Hollywood on the Potomac.
“I really tried to make this particular film unique. Part of the uniqueness of it is the casting and the characters. The situation has never been done before with 90 something year-old World War II veterans. Every day World War II veterans are dying at an alarming rate. The last time I checked, I believe that 2010 numbers from the Veterans Administration reported 850 per day. They’re not going to be around much longer.”
Mickey Rooney with David Rotan
“The inspiration for this movie actually came from working with Mickey Rooney,” he added. “He was, originally, going to play one of the three main roles. He was set to go and signed a letter of intent and was on board with the project. He passed away in April this year. Since then, even though he was the original inspiration, I’ve also always been a history buff. I grew up around a lot of World War II veterans in my community.
My babysitter when I was a kid, her husband was a World War II veteran. He let me dress up in his uniform, which I still have by the way back in my closet and would teach me the drill, – the manual of arms and everything. As a little kid, I marched around, so I grew up with a deep-rooted respect for that generation even before the books were written calling them the greatest generation, which they are. As time was going on and I’d made a few films and gotten to this level, the timing was right. It’s now or never. In five years from now, it will be impossible, sadly to say, to cast a movie with not just one but three 90 something year-old real World War II veterans.”
Mickey Rooney and David Rotan
“Mickey Rooney was very interesting. It really was a great experience to work with him. I’ll never forget one day on the set of “Lost Stallions: The Journey Home” as I was waiting on the cameras to be setup I just drove Mickey around in a golf cart. We pulled over under an oak tree and sat for about 30 minutes and talked about old Hollywood and his experiences and how he was in World War II. I’ll never forget he started talking about Judy Garland and his experiences, and being a film school graduate and history buff, you always hear about the golden era of Hollywood and stories like that– Judy Garland and working with Busby Berkeley on these huge numbers in the 1930’s musicals– but here I was getting it straight from the horse’s mouth. When Mickey Rooney started talking about Judy Garland, he actually teared up. He really almost cried as he was talking to me. He had tears in his eyes. That to me was, “Wow!” This is not just watching Turner Classic Movies or American Movie Classics, this is a guy who lived it. He’s not just talking about big movie stars that have come and gone. He’s talking about friends, personal friends of his.”
We of course wanted to know about Ava Gardner. “He mentioned that. We were shooting the film in North Carolina, in the Winston-Salem area. He mentioned that his first wife was from North Carolina and not far away from there. I’d known about that previously. To this day, there’s a museum. The small town of Smithfield, I believe, where Ava Gardner was from. They have a museum and there’s a lot of pictures of Mickey in that museum. He did briefly mention her.”
Jan and Mickey Rooney with David Rotan
David lives in Reston, Virginia and has been making movies since he was five years old with his brothers who are also filmmakers. “From an early age, we would shoot movies in the backyard, in the woods, in the park; invite our neighborhood friends to be involved with it. We would send the film cartridge off to the drugstore to get developed, then we would have a grand premiere on the living room wall for all our friends that had helped with the movies.”
He went to film school at the North Carolina School of the Arts School of Filmmaking and for his thesis film he got the rights for a short story from a nationally-known, award-winning folk storyteller – Elizabeth Ellis – to make her children’s story Flowers and Freckle Cream into a movie.
“We went all out. We were the first student production at the school of the arts at the time to build a full interior of a farm house on a sound stage. We got donated lumber, donated paint and props. We built an entire five-room interior of a farmhouse right there on the sound stage at the school of the arts. It was a period piece from the 1940’s and it turned out really well. I cast some really great authentic actors which is sometimes rare for student films.
It went on to tour the film festivals circuit longer than any other film from, as far as I know, to this day from the North Carolina School of the Arts. It was touring for two years after I graduated and it managed to win several awards. The top award that it won was the Angelus Awards which is sponsored by Family Theater Productions but also by the Director’s Guild of America and George Lucas’ company, Lucas Film Limited. It was a huge honor. It won top prize from over 200 worldwide submissions. They had the awards ceremony there at the DGA headquarters on Sunset Boulevard. That was many years ago but it was a great honor and it really helped boost my career.”
Since then, he has directed four other feature films, which takes us to Old Soldiers which is in pre-production – a kind of bucket list for veterans, but using real ones.
We asked him to comment on each of the stars.
Hugh O’Brian: (Think The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) “Hugh O’Brian is 89 and he has the distinction of being the youngest drill instructor in the history of the United States Marin Corp. He was a drill instructor at the age of 17 and was stationed in California for training. Most of the Marine Corps then went to the South Pacific and they were shipping them out as fast as they could because they really had a shortage of sergeants to instruct, drill sergeants. His father was also a marine and he grew up around the Marine Corps. It was just very natural for him so they let him in at an early age and the next thing you know he was the drill instructor for a lot of the corps. He told me just not too long ago that the marines that are in the famous Iwo Jima flag raising picture – he trained those guys. He’s very proud. He was the honorary marshall at this year’s National Memorial Day parade for the WWII section. It’s a great honor to have him in the film.”
Hugh O’Brian and David Rotan
James Best : (Think bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the CBS television series The Dukes of Hazzard) “He is our most recent addition to the cast and he is basically stepping in to take the part that Mickey Rooney left vacant. That is a pivotal part. It’s the role that is the catalyst for their journey as to why they set out on this road trip mission to come see the national WWII Memorial in D.C. He just turned 88. It’s been a real goal of mine to be authentic with this. Anyone can make a movie with 70 something year olds with makeup on pretending to be like they’re 90 or close to 90 and WWII veterans. I wanted the real deal, that’s what makes this movie so special. It’s real WWII veterans playing WWII veterans. Best joined the army in 1944 which was during the war. Most of his service was right after the surrender of Germany and he spent a lot of time as a military police trying to clean up the country. He was constantly trying to fight these guerrilla gangs that were still going through Germany at the time, a lot of them were teenagers, that were trained by the Hitler Youth. That’s where he got a start in acting actually. He got involved with special services, and they went around and they entertained troops. He got involved with that and he’s been acting ever since.”
James Best
Clifton James: (Think the prison guard in Cool Hand Luke) “He is more of a character actor. He’s one of those talents that you might not recognize by his name right off, but as soon as you see him, you recognize him. He’s been in tons of movies, critically acclaimed films. He’s most famous for his comic role as Sheriff J.W. Pepper in two James Bond movies, Live and Let Die, The Man With the Golden Gun and he had several more roles along those same lines playing the stereotypical southern sheriff. Actually, he’s a New Yorker and he still lives in the city. He’s 93 years. He is a real battle hardened veteran. He served in the South Pacific. He was a combat platoon sergeant and he saw some serious combat. He’s the real deal and he’s great, a great talent and I’m glad I have all three of these guys.”
Clifton James
The majority of the film will be shot in Northern Virginia, Fairfax County and Loudoun County. Then, of course, the ending of the film will be at the National WWII Memorial in D.C. Hollywood on the Potomac will be on set to see three Old Soldiers in The Cocktail Hours of their lives returning to the big screen.
